This invention relates to a bottom box whereon a wire netting frame of a pet cage is to be supported, and more particularly is concerned with one which is more hygienic as compared with conventional ones and strongly-built to be resistive to twist and strain, though with a less amount of molding material consumed.
A pet cage is public-known which was composed of a bottom box having a bottom plate and four side walls, and a wire-netting frame being mounted on the upper brim of that bottom box. A pet cage of this type was such that a garbage receptacle convenient for inserting and withdrawing was mounted on the bottom plate. What is more, mounted directly on the upper end face of the circumferential wall of the garbage receptacle was a sheet of wire net being spread there as a floor whereon the pet animal played about gamboling or crawling. Heretofore, when the wire netting frame over the bottom box or the above-mentioned sheet of wire net was loaded on the four side walls of the bottom box, it was usually mounted on a shelf which was formed by making each upper part of the four side walls of the bottom box project outward in the form of a step. Therefore, in the case of the bottom box such as used in conventional pet cages, even though in the bathing time of a little bird or a small animal, splashed waterdrops or minute residua of feed could be for the most part recieved by the garbage receptacle, but it was inescapable that waterdrops or garbage still continued to intrude even into the gaps between the circumferential walls of both garbage receptacle and bottom box, and as a result there occurred further the necessity of providing a bottom plate as a collector of those waterdrops or garbage. But then a new gap came to be produced between the circumferential wall of the garbage receptacle and the inner circumferential wall of the bottom box because of the circumferential wall of the garbage receptacle being situated interiorly to the inner circumferential wall of the bottom box. It followed from this that waterdrops or fine trash fell through this gap, or else the unclean matter accumulated in the gap and failed to drop into the bottom box. On the other hand, since the shelf whereon the sheet of wire net and the wire netting frame were to be mounted was located exteriorly to the inner circumferential wall of the bottom box, it did not carry out the function of stopping the gap.
Under these circumstances, this invention, in consideration of a steep rise in prices of plastic-molding material, aims to the molding of an improved box with 50 to 70% of the amount of the material consumed in fabrication of conventional bottom boxes, thereby trying to clear the bottom box of conventional pet cages of its bottom plate. But seeing that the bottom plate of the bottom box was playing such an important role as mentioned before, it became inevitable to make something which should take place of the bottom plate of the bottom box. When such a thing was tried to be formed with the use of plastics, it was necessary to employ a complicated and expensive metallic mold, consequently involving a weak point that the products could not be supplied in low prices and in large quantities. Then as another method to eliminate a bottom plate of this kind, there was thought of the provision of a two-stepped shelf for both the sheet of wire net and the garbage receptacle on the inside of the four side walls of the bottom box. However there remained a defect that the integral molding of plastics was difficult and proved to be expensive. In view of the above failures, a bottom box was formed with metallic plate without the bottom plate, and another bottom box was formed having interconnected separately-formed three walls consisting of one rear plate and two side plates in accordance with the previous invention of this author However, any of these two proposals had all the same the weakness of being deficient in durability and hard to handle. In these circumstances, our invention has come in according to which it became possible to create a bottom box which can do without a bottom plate and has the four side walls entirely similar to conventional bottom boxes at that.
It is a general object of this invention to provide a pet cage which has no need for the provision of such a bottom plate on its bottom box as seen in conventional pet cases which is able to receive wholly waterdrops or minute rubbish splashed at the bathing time of the small animal or the little bird, by means of a garbage receptacle without purposely furnishing the bottom plate, and which is not apt to soil the surroundings with waterdrops and other droppings under and around the bottom box.
Another object of this invention is to provide a bottom box arrangement for a pet cage which is held resistant to twist and strain and is able to stand under a great weight on the basis of being constructed of the four side walls.
A further object of this invention is to provide a pet cage which is possible to integrally formed without being in need of employing some complicated and expensive mold such as a split pattern and the like and only with the help of an injection mold by being furnished with means for slidably mounting the garbage receptacle in the form of a plurality of protruding pieces directly under the shelf for placing the sheet of wire net, thereby being able to be produced in low prices and in large quantities.
Still a further object of this invention is to provide a pet cage which satisfactorily meets the existing economic situation of this field by getting rid of the harmful influence resulting from the removal of the bottom plate from the bottom box and further by having reduced the amount of molding material consumed by the portion of the remvoed bottom plate.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from a reading of the following detailed description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.